The Year in Photos

November 25, 2008

Last season was my first winter on the Transworld payroll. It was a trip. The winter started in Munich wandering around with 40,000 crazed Germans at the Air and Style. From there it was on to Austria with Fox, Smith and Mills. We shredded the streets of the Arlberg and got our legs back under us.

After that I headed up to Mt. Baker around New Years and got a week of pow days. I hung with old friends, met a bunch of new ones and got to document a heavy session on the Mt. Baker Road Gap. Barrett Christy drove by us as we were hanging out on the road. Seemed poignant. It was then that I fell in love with that corner of the world.

In January I spent some time at Bear, experienced the hype machine that is the X-Games, almost lost my mind in Vegas at my first trade show, and then after staying up all night at the Riders Poll, stumbled onto to a plane headed to Jackson Hole.

I woke up in the Tetons and it was dumping. Natural Selection was something else. Watching so many legends tear around that mountain was unreal. I was in awe of both them and all the snow I got to slash.

After that it was back up to Baker for the Legendary Banked Slalom, another soul-charging experience, that was over way too soon.

February faded into March and I did my best to keep up. I got to return to Montana and see that not much had changed. And then it was April before I knew it and I was still getting powder on my face. May came and I was in Washington with the These Days dudes, getting the last of it at Summit at Snoqualmie. A lot of it is still a blur.

I’ve spent a lot of time pouring over these photos recently, the images are burned into my brain. But… it isn’t these fractions of seconds that really get me going anymore, these are merely the Point A’s and B’s. Because…now, as I’m growing increasingly (almost unbearably) anxious about the coming winter, I find myself returning (or retreating?) to the time spent in between, on the roads to and from, with the friends that helped me along, in those quiet moments, alone, fatigued, frustrated, cold, not knowing, but trusting and going, and somehow happening across a moment worth documenting.